Let's look at the legislation itself.
The title of the legislation relative to the changes in the Accord is:
1. This Act may be cited as the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador Additional Fiscal Equalization Offset Payments Act.
19. The Minister shall make a payment to the Province in the amount of $2 billion to allow the Province to reduce its outstanding debt.
22. The additional fiscal equalization offset payment that shall be made to the Province for a fiscal year corresponds to the amount determined by the Minister in accordance with the formula
(A - B) - C
where
A is the fiscal equalization payment that may be made to the Province for the fiscal year under the equalization formula in effect at that time, calculated as if the Province did not have any offshore revenue or petroleum production;
B is the fiscal equalization payment to the Province for that fiscal year under the equalization formula in effect at that time; and
C is the fiscal equalization offset payment for that fiscal year.
I have highlighted the words I would like to discuss.
The first area - is what the Province received the 2 billion dollar advance payment for - remember all the gab and to and fro about what we should spend the money on? Can you read what the law says? I wonder why the Premier allowed himself to be dictated to by Ottawa? They told us what we could use the money for and we agreed - that's what gets me all the weasel words about what we can spend the 2 billion on.
The second and third highlighted areas deal with what Sue's Blog mentioned in the last post. We signed an agreement which subjected our future to whatever Ottawa decided to do with equalization at any time. Don't feed me garbage Williams - tell me why you did it! Or should I expect that you "one of the best lawyers in Canada" the open-line cheerleaders called you today - missed the obvious? No - more like if you did not agree to that little stipulation that screws us - you could not have floated down the escalator screaming "we got it - we got it".
The Premier believes the people of Newfoundland and Labrador - including the media - are stupid. Keep it up Billy - you're on a roll or role whatever fits! Probably both. When you created Frankenstein - did you forget how the story ended?
For those of you who would like to review the entire legislation CLICK HERE
4 comments:
Danny agreed to it in advance. It was right in the 2003 Provincialist Communist party platform:
http://www.pcparty.nf.net/plan2003h.htm
A Progressive Conservative government will begin the task of seeking a new relationship with Canada from the perspective of Newfoundland and Labrador around the following core issues:
Reasonable conditions for the removal of non-renewable resource revenues from the calculation of equalization payments; for example, a binding federal-provincial agreement that would obligate the Province to spend non-renewable resource revenues to modernize economic infrastructure in the Province and to reduce the provincial debt, so that future generation of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will continue to enjoy benefits from non-renewable resource revenues long after the resources and royalties are extinguished.
I don't disagree with that - he just failed to tell anybody - instead he and Sullivan said they were mulling over what to spend the money on...as if they had a choice.
I don't disagree with that - he just failed to tell anybody
How does publishing it in your platform book constitute "failing to tell"?
the legislation says debt - what happened to infrastructure? We need investment that also can make more money and maybe a heritage fund so that when we use all of the non-renewables that our kids can't have we have another maybe renewable resource developed with the money that can be used by future generations - sure takes off some of the burden and leaves more money in the kit - but profitable investments that are renewable would be great. Like Alberta that should include significant petro chemical industry.
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